The Information: ‘Apple Can “Distill” Google’s Big Gemini Model’

Jessica E. Lessin, Amir Efrati, and Erin Woo, reporting for the paywalled-without-gift-links The Information:

While we have reported that Apple can tweak, or fine-tune, a version of Google’s Gemini AI so that it responds to queries the way Apple wants, the agreement gives Apple a lot more freedom with Google’s tech.

In fact, Apple has complete access to the Gemini model in its own data center facilities. Apple can use that access to produce smaller models that power specific tasks or are small enough to run directly on Apple devices so they can run the tasks faster, said a person who has direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The process of producing such models is called distillation, which essentially transfers knowledge from one large language model, which acts like a teacher, to another model that acts as a student.

That Apple negotiated this level of access is interesting, but not surprising. The biggest tell that this deal runs much deeper than simple white-labelling is that Apple will — or at least has the right to — run these Gemini-based models in Apple’s own Private Cloud Compute datacenters.

★ Thursday, 26 March 2026